Sunday, March 30, 2008

Hotel Garbage.

There is this dilemma.
The city of Mumbai in India has its extremes of human presence.
Performing the project “The most beautiful people in the world” brought the team to the edges of those extremes.

To see and witness and share for a short time ultimate miserable circumstances in which people live is a most shocking experience.
The dilemma comes when it is considered to describe in a posting the visit to such a situation.

This will have several consequences one of them being that writing about it will mean reliving the experience.
To see and feel again like a most realistic film what was experienced.

Yesterday the team visited a lady that was living in a 150 years old hotel that had been abandoned for decades.
The situation in there was most shocking.
Inside it was completely deteriorated.
One big garbage heap of enormous dimensions populated by numerous skinny cats.
And it was the suffocating and nauseating smell that was the hardest.
Here people were having their home.
A very tough experience for all the team members.

It was so bad that the early morning after, comfortably in the room of the Hare Krishna Guesthouse, who (praise the Lord), had stopped their 5 o’clock chanting, the posting to be written, heavy doubts arose about the sense of giving the loyal and fervent blog readers a detailed report.
To re-live the horrible experience and offer the fervent and loyal readers a share of the trauma as well.

Does that make sense?
Will that change anything?

Eventually, profiting of the clarity of mind manifesting early in the morning, it was decided not to traumatise everybody.
To store the memories somewhere in the caves of the brain and to leave the fervent and loyal blog readers in peace and harmony.

In any case, the lady that lived in these horrific circumstances has been documented for the project “The most beautiful people in the world” and can be seen in a few weeks on the website of the project.
Who she is, how she lives and why she feels the most beautiful.

There are two days now to finish the project.
A lot of administration needs to be done.
This morning there is even some additional shooting.
And the last group of films need to be developed and contact sheets made.

After, it will be the return to Europe where dilemmas as described in this posting are not too likely.
Because over there abandoned hotels are not used to house people and store rotting garbage.





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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your experience there has certainly been diverse. What a great emersion into India's culture. One few get to experience. Thank you for continuing to share yourself and your work with all of us fervent folks. Your humanity continues sneak out. HeHe

Enjoy your last two days there and have a safe trip back to Europe. When do you plan to return to the western hemisphere?